Replica of the antenna used by Karl G. Jansky to discover the radio Universe. Affectionately known as “Jansky’s Merry-go-Round,” this antenna’s turntable allowed Jansky to learn the direction of any signal he picked up. It was part of a program by Bell Laboratotries to locate sources of 20.5 MHz radio signals that might interfere with their overseas wireless communications. He located thunderstorms and the famous hiss that he determined came from the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. The discovery was widely publicized, appearing in the New York Times of May 5, 1933.
Grote Reber suggested that this replica be built in Green Bank to exact specification, down to sourcing old Model T tires for the rotation axis. The antenna’s wires are just visible against the clouds.
Jansky Antenna Replica in Green Bank
Replica of the antenna used by Karl G. Jansky to discover the radio Universe. Affectionately known as “Jansky’s Merry-go-Round,” this antenna’s turntable allowed Jansky to learn the direction of any signal he picked up. It was part of a program by Bell Laboratotries to locate sources of 20.5 MHz radio signals that might interfere with their overseas wireless communications. He located thunderstorms and the famous hiss that he determined came from the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. The discovery was widely publicized, appearing in the New York Times of May 5, 1933.
Grote Reber suggested that this replica be built in Green Bank to exact specification, down to sourcing old Model T tires for the rotation axis.
Maintenance Team in Green Bank
The world’s most impressive single-dish radio telescopes need care and skilled attention, and these are the talented folks who keep them running.
Hand Milling in Green Bank
Green Bank Machinist Harry Sipe watches carefully as he guides this milling machine painstakingly by hand. Computer-controlled milling machines now installed at Green Bank have sped up this process tenfold.
A Model Molecule and its Spectrum
Much of the work of radio astronomy is detection of the wiggling of molecules. This is the weakest of all energies traveling through space, and yet it tells us incredible details about so many different environments in our Solar System, Galaxy, and other galaxies. A model of a molecule (shown here 500 million times larger than life) spins in a very specific manner, making radio waves as it does. On the screen are the signals we receive when that molecule spins in space.
NRAO Comes to Green Bank News Clipping
This article appeared in the Pocahontas Times in West Virginia when Green Bank was chosen as the new home of the United States’ National Radio Astronomy Observatory.